November 23, 2004

"What in the World Ever Became of Sweet Jane?"

Andrew linked to a piece that seems to be going around in liberal circles:

The Life of Joe RepublicanJoe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance -- now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained...

There's lots more, and it's pretty funny. And some of it is even valid.

But I couldn't resist fudging-up my own version:
A Day in the Life of Jane Democrat, in the year 2010Jane wakes up, and brews a fragrant pot of Sulawesi. She gives nary a thought to the world's sea lanes kept open by the US and those allies who still think civilization is worth fighting for. The hard-fought battle that re-opened the Straits of Malacca she dismisses as "neocon warmongering."

She takes her medications, unaware that almost all cutting-edge pharmaceutical research happens in the US, where drug companies are still allowed to be seriously profitable.

Jane drives past a neighborhood that used to be a slum, but is not so bad these days. She makes no connection with Welfare Reform (forced on Bill Clinton by a Republican Congress). Or with the Faith Based Initiatives that have enlisted the strength of local churches to fight poverty and drug addiction, with an effectiveness that bureaucracies can't equal.

Jane arrives work, at a high-tech start-up. There she is treated like a valued team member—the entrepreneur who founded the company knows well the crushing burden of sullenness, inefficiency and disruption that unionization would place on them.

Jane is unaware that her company is prospering partly because a majority-Republican Congress is starting to carve away choking thickets of burdensome government regulations. And also because new free-trade breakthroughs, and NAFTA (invented by Republicans, but signed, most admirably, by Bill Clinton) are behind it's export-led growth.

Jane IS however, aware of big possibilities in the stock-options and profit-sharing that come with her job. She and her co-workers put in long hours and give of their best to make the company a success. Her trendy "whole-learning" education has left her without the mental tools to understand that Capitalism is not some plot by evil corporations, but is in fact the very thing she is doing right now. But the incentives still work, and she has a good chance of becoming very prosperous.

Jane looks at her pay stub. She fails to ponder that one portion of her Social Security tax is going into a Vanguard Index Fund, and is expanding like yeasty dough. While the other portion, that goes into the traditional government program, earns nothing. But the light-bulb will go on eventually.

She considers calling her doctor for an appointment because she is feeling run-down. But these non-catastrophic medical problems are now paid out of her own HSA. It's her own (pre-tax) money, and the account's been growing and growing. She can appreciate that, and decides it's time to get serious about a healthier life-style, and to get more exercise.

She starts to climb a ladder. She notices the 14 safety-warning labels on the ladder, and has a vague thought that the depredations of the Trial Lawyers might have gone a bit too far. Little does she know that everything she buys is cheaper these days, because Republicans have enacted tort-reform legislation.

Jane is feeling good about life, and stops after work at Nordstrom's, and splurges on a couple of pairs of Feragamos. Not thinking, of course, about the latest tax-cut that has left the money in her own pocketbook, and put new energy in the economy.

She picks up her daughter Jeanette at school. Jane had considered having an abortion, but she is sensitive to the climate of opinion around her. And somehow, even among Democrats, the casual destruction of life just doesn't seem so acceptable anymore. She doesn't speculate on why opinion has changed.

She's delighted that Jeanette is learning to read much more easily than she did. Perhaps there's something in this Phonics stuff after all. As a parent she appreciates how the schools are being held to tougher standards now. She knows people who have exercised their new right under NCLB to demand a different school if their current one is failing. She doesn't think that will be necessary for her—the mere threat of such possibilities has produced huge improvements in the local district.

She walks along a dark street, and suddenly, there is a rag-head terrorist standing right in front of her! But no, it's just a movie poster...There WAS a terrorist who was going to saw Jane's pretty-but-empty head off. But the Coalition's recent invasion of Jihadistan forced Achmed to change his plans. The establishment of yet another democracy in the Middle East would be a calamity for his movement, and must be stopped. So, instead of Jane, he's going to encounter an 18-year old kid from Modesto with an M-16. A young man who understands that Freedom's Wall must be defended by patriots, so fluff-brains like Jane can live in peace. The odds do not favor Achmed...

Posted by John Weidner at November 23, 2004 9:41 PM

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